


Tales From the Red White and Blue

by wonderwhatthisbuttondoes



Series: Tales From the Red White and Blue [1]
Category: Hellboy - All Media Types
Genre: BPRD missions, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Friends to Lovers, Hellboy's hoard of Cats, Hellboy/Liz/Myers cuddling, Life at the BPRD, M/M, Neither Hellboy nor Myers permanently dies, Nightmares, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, nautical ghosts, so much cuddling in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 16:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16916319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwhatthisbuttondoes/pseuds/wonderwhatthisbuttondoes
Summary: In the wake of a major loss, Hellboy takes care of the friends he has left, and learns that Myers is mentally a lot stronger and weirder than he looks...





	1. (Prologue): The One That Got Away

**Author's Note:**

> (Close-canon slash/adventure story, set after the first Hellboy movie (2004). Occasional details from Hellboy comics, by Mike Mignola.)

-

Myers:

It started the day we buried Clay.

Hellboy was there, and Liz, and Manning. Even Abe was there, wearing his rebreather under cover of a long, dark green raincoat. It was raining, of course. Not that this would have bothered Abe, but I think it’s a rule that it must be raining whenever a member of the BPRD gets buried. Clay’s wish to be buried on the grounds surprised Manning. Red and I listened to his diatribe on that subject, and Red shot me a roll of his eyes. Liz, who had hardly left Hellboy’s side since the Moscow incident, eyed Manning with semi-affectionate patience and snuggled her head more firmly against Red’s shoulder.

Every time she did that, Red’s eyes would widen just a little, and there’d be a shift of his shoulders, like he thought she needed more room on his chest.

The day we buried Clay, alongside four men from the original brigade that found Hellboy, was also the day that the BPRD cats decided to hate Liz.

It was funny at first, and that’s one of the most painful things for me to remember now. We thought everything was okay. I was jealous, even. Not of Hellboy, or of Liz, really, just… I felt like a little kid looking in the window of Santa’s workshop, knowing between one breath and the next that I -wanted- the thing I was looking at with my whole being… …and also that I was lucky just to have seen it once in my lifetime.

Somehow Liz knew, and one day I caught her looking at me with those strange, dark eyes of hers. She picked up my hand, and said,

“Come on,” and we went to Red’s room. He was there, pouring a drink into one of those tall, metal cups you get when you order an ice cream milkshake at Denny’s. He was glad to see me, but there was a note of apprehension too, like he kept expecting me to knock over something expensive. I was feeling a little apprehensive myself.

We got dinner, and tons of popcorn, and some of those six-foot sub sandwiches for Red. They do sam'iches good in New Jersey.

Liz then proceeded to torture us with ‘South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut’. -Red can actually blush, if you watch closely enough. By the time the credits were rolling, we’d gotten crumbs all over Hellboy’s bed, and my ribs hurt from laughing. Liz got up to put an empty popcorn bowl on the trolley, and when she came back, she climbed onto the bed from my side. I scooted back, and cast a quick, furtive glance over my shoulder to see what Red was going to do about that. He didn’t look happy. …Curious, maybe.

All I knew was that if I scooted any further over to avoid snuggling with Red’s girlfriend right under his nose, I was gonna be in his -lap-. So I stopped moving.

We all did.

Their eyes met over my head, and for a single, horrible moment, I thought they were about to ask me to do a threesome with them. Would they ask that of me, to be so close to a thing I wanted so badly, yet not really part of it?

They didn’t.

There was a long pause. Then Red chuckled, breath warm through the back of my hair like the exhaust of a car, and dropped a heavy, reassuring hand on my shoulder. Liz smiled and kissed my forehead, eyes closed, as sweetly as ever it was done. I took a breath, too deep and shaky, and then a more normal one.

They held me like that all night, never asking for more, and not offering.

* * *

Personal space was gone the next morning.

They could touch me, and I could touch them, and I couldn’t kiss Liz on the mouth, but that was about it. They changed the rules, because they loved me. Maybe there were other reasons. I’d like to think that Liz didn’t know about the rest yet.

It was Abe who figured it out. He got done reading Liz after the Serpentorium mission, and he told us. Liz was dead. Her mind had come back, and her body was fine, but her soul, that strength of will that Hellboy and I loved so much, had never returned from the other side of Rasputin’s trap.

Even Liz hadn’t known right off. She remembered how to be Liz, and she WAS Liz… but she was getting tired, and she’d finally figured out why. It takes a lot of energy to pretend to care about things you’ve moved beyond, and it says something about Liz’s soul, that even the after-image could care for so long.

Naturally, Hellboy and me weren’t having it.

We tried everything, and I do mean everything, including some stuff we probably should have left alone. We destroyed a loading dock on the Jersey shore, mightily pissed off the Egyptian Secret Service, and almost lost Red to the ninth circle.

And we failed, sort of.

With the unearthly too-bright light shining through the plate-glass door behind her, Liz took Red’s hand, and mine, and she kissed each of us in turn.

Then she walked forwards with that determined cat’s grace we knew so well, opened the door to Heaven, and went home.

-We did that much, at least.

* * *

It was after that, that things got really weird. Hellboy’s impossible to live with under normal circumstances, but with Liz dying for real that time I’m surprised ANY of us came through, especially him.

Red trashed his room when we first came home, and it wasn’t like when Professor Broom died. No, that time he had a mission and an enemy who still had to pay.

This time it was worse. Far worse.

Red just took his phone off the hook, and walked away from his give-a-shit. We’d find him sitting on the floor in a disused hallway, naked except for his shorts, playing cards.

When I tried to get him to suit up for a mission with me, he’d calmly ask,

“Is it the end of tha world?” and if I said “no,” he’d say “fine,” and put down another card.

Some people, he wouldn’t even talk to.

Manning was making noises about firing him, but it was an empty threat, and Hellboy knew it. Manning couldn’t KILL him, and the idea of Red wandering off into the big bad world with a carpet bag scared them BOTH silly.

* * *

I was…

Well, I had a lot of time on my hands. I remember a few missions. Philadelphia. My room. My sister’s place in Maryland, with a curious horse looking at me over a white fence railing. My brother-in-law talking, at least his lips were moving, but I don’t remember what he said. Sleet agitated by the windshield wipers of a company van.

Waking up sitting at a table in the BPRD library, with a gray woolen blanket like the ones you get on airline flights pulled tight around me.

Red was there, and he looked worried.

I spent the next six days trying to get Red to quit hovering and being too nice to me.

Giving Red someone else to worry about had finally snapped him out of his daze, and if I had planned it that way, it would have been pretty sneaky.

Manning thought I was a genius, and said so.

Personally, I blame stress and having pulled an all-nighter.

Most things blow over eventually though, and by the time Manning stopped shooting me those embarrassing 'attaboy’ glances when Red’s back was turned, I think we were all feeling a bit more sane.

Anyway, Hellboy and I got back to business as usual for the next two years.

Abe seemed especially relieved.

-


	2. Happiness Is…

-

Hellboy:

If I was a Human, I wouldn’t look like Myers.

Not that I don’t LIKE the way Myers looks, I just don’t think I’d deal well with being that …breakable. It’s an illusion, by the way. Except for children, most Humans are equally soft and crunchy from the viewpoint of the monsters I fight. It was another Human that-

Father was Human.

Strength isn’t really physical, not the strength that counts.  Father had strength because he was smart, and because he believed in what he was doing so hard that everybody else did too. He believed in me.

I believed in my father so hard that I forgot he WAS Human, and by God I paid for it.

Not as much as I could have though, if it hadn’t been for my father’s last gift, John Myers.

Not that I see Myers as MINE, really…

It’s just that father GAVE him to me, and he’s so… I dunno. I’m NOT gonna use the ‘P’ word.

Myers sounds more like the guys I grew up around than agents twice his age.

He’s brave, even when he thinks he’s losing.

He didn’t flinch, not even the first day. Okay, he stammered and blinked a lot, but he never flinched FROM ME. Only two other men have ever passed that test.

…NOW what do I do?

* * *

Myers:

His tail’s twitching again. A tabby with white socks hops up onto the bed, and approaches the tail cautiously. She dabs a paw, then dances back. Hellboy gives her a level, appraising glance, and goes back to writing in his journal. The cat- -Sally I think her name is- -watches his tail-tip move back and forth across about a foot of blanket. She starts rocking forwards on her front paws, coming partway up off her hindquarters and tracking the red tip with her nose, intent. Hellboy glances at her sideways, just in time to whisk his tail to safety as Sally pounces. She’s on it a half-second later, play-biting and holding onto the tail with her forepaws. Red plays along, wiggling his tail like it’s trying to escape. Sally loves it. Finally she lays there holding the tail, purring. She begins to wash the red appendage with her tongue, and Red’s trying not to laugh. Maybe he’s ticklish?

I’ve seen him do things with that tail in combat that most people wouldn’t do with anything sensitive.

Suddenly the tail-tip comes to life again, curling up to 'wash’ Sally’s face for her. Purring louder, she leans into it. I must have moved, because Hellboy’s looking at me now. I put my pen down.

“How 'bout it,?”

“Huh? What?” I blink.

“You’re staring at my tail. D'you want to see it?”

“Um- -okay, yeah,” I move to the edge of the bed, and sit. Sally looks up at me in annoyance as her toy is taken away. I’ve seen Red’s tail before, I’ve even been picked up by it, but I never asked to just _examine_ it. It’s one of a kind, that’s for sure. The end’s gently tapered. Deep, almost brick-red skin that feels at least a centimeter thick, and covers cylindrical of bands of muscle. They’re not hard, like tense shoulders, but relaxed wherever the muscles are at rest, like a martial artist’s. …He’s very warm. Underneath, I can feel well-spaced bones that seem to interlock for strength, and I’m reminded more of a snake than a cat. This surprises me.

“Well?” Red breaks in on my train of thought.

“Nice tail,” I say.

“Thanks.”

“Mrrrreowwwwwrrrr…!” Sally insists, trying to force her head between my hands and her toy.

* * *

Hellboy:

He likes my tail.

I’ve caught myself thinking that a lot lately. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but there it is. I kissed Myers, once. It was a challenge from Liz, and we played it off afterward, but we did kiss. I’ve wondered since… if Liz… if she would have asked me to bring him in someday. With us.

I wouldn’ have done it.

I like the man, maybe more than I knew at the time, but I could never have shared Liz.

God, the what-ifs… I could make myself crazy with this.

If I had let him, it would have been sweet. Memorable like a black and white movie. …And it probably would have screwed up my friendship with Myers for a long time.

I’m glad it never came up.

Then.

Now I don’t know what to think, but I’ve got this sudden desire to see what he’d do if some of this maple syrup…

I feel kinda dirty.

* * *

Myers:

Today was rough.

The alarm went off around two in the morning, and we had to go kill an eight-foot centipede that had crawled out of a South American mummy at the archaeology department of NYU. It kept falling apart into hundreds of other bugs and re-forming, and it was just really, really gross. Red stuffed it in a metal trash can, and I let an ancient Mayan priest who knew the chant to stop the thing speak through me, and the centipede _did_ die, but I can still feel the little crawling feet on the back of my neck.

Eyuck.

I jump at a touch on my shoulder, but as usual, there’s nobody there. In the seat beside me, Hellboy smiles and sneaks his tail out of sight under his long coat. -He’s right, he had me that time. Abe, sitting across from us in the truck, looks up from his laptop abruptly.

Red and I both freeze, wondering what the psychic’s just 'read’ off us.

“Ah,” Abe nods once, then goes back to his typing.

I glance over at Red. He glances back, and shrugs a shoulder. Neither of us says it.

* * *

Hellboy:

So, it’s not just me. …Thanks, Abe.

What to do NOW, that’s something else again. I don’t put my heart in the way of oncoming traffic if I can help it.

Though come to think of it, oncoming traffic was the first thing I saved Myers from…

* * *

Myers:

I leave my shoulder holster on the table, and unbutton my shirt. A simple task I’ve done hundreds of times, and it helps me think clearly. My hands are still shaking. I’d like to think they wouldn’t be if I hadn’t been possessed earlier, but it HAS been a rough day all around. I take off my shirt, ball it up, and make a basket into the hamper.

I have a pull-up bar in my bedroom doorway, and I grip the cool metal with both hands, almost holding myself up. I shut my eyes, and let out a breath.

Behind my closed eyelids, the more vivid events of the day play out again, like the highlights of a game. I shiver, remembering the tic-tic-tic-tic-tic sound of all those legs on the hard tile floor. I _shouldn’t_ be alone right now.

…And I don’t have to be, I remember, smiling. I take a quick shower, and stop off at the chow hall to pick up dinner.

* * *

Hellboy:

Myers is early.

“Hey there,” I get out of the way, because he has food with him. Smells like roast chicken, and I could use some of that. Myers brings in the cart, and I close the door.

“I thought you might be hungry,” he says, speaking kind of at random.

“You thought right,” I agree, moving the first of several trays and bowls onto the table. Myers takes some chicken, mashed potatoes and slaw onto his own plate, and sits at the far side of the table. None of the others did that. Clay would take a wing or a pancake off the top, but he wouldn’t sit with me. Not after the watermelon misunderstanding. Myers just keeps his plate out of reach, and makes conversation that I reply to by nodding or glaring at him. It works.

Myers doesn’t have much to say today, though. He eats everything on his plate without really noticing it, and watches TV over my shoulder.

I put the dishes back on the tray a little louder than necessary, and Myers looks up quickly.

“-Did you want me to go?” he asks. It’s a serious question, since we see so much of each other anyway that privacy’s a hot ticket item.

“Nah. Stay over if you want.”

“-Okay.”

* * *

Myers:

“Got any sixes?”

“Go fish.”

I take another card, stifling a yawn. It’s an eight of clubs.

“Got any jacks?” Red asks.

“Umm… one,” I hand it to him. Red rearranges his cards a little, frowning. Ozmandeus, the orange and white cat perched on the edge of the table, watches him attentively. Another cat rubs it’s head against my ankle as it passes unseen beneath the table. I look at my cards.

“That’s it, I’m done,” I decide, stretching.

“Another hard day at the office…” Red smirks, gathering up the pack.

“I’ve had worse…” I shrug, slipping off my shoulder holster.

He sleeps in his shorts, I sleep in boxers and a white T-shirt. We head for bed, and I’m asleep beside him before the cats begin to curl up around us.

-


	3. Secrets

-

Hellboy:

Something’s up, and Myers isn’t sharing.

He doesn’t talk to the other agents as much, and he doesn’t seem to like ME talkin’ to them either, which is a dead giveaway that they’re givin’ him flak. He caught some crap about ‘sleeping with’ with me and Liz too, but I think this time it’s worse.

Figures.

Myers has a life. He reads a lot with Abe, he runs PT with the other agents topside, and he goes into town. Even visits family a couple of times a year. Myers just naturally likes people, an’ he’s sad when they don’t like him back.

Holding the only steady job a regular Joe can get in this outfit has never made him popular, but _this_ … I dunno.

I could back off for a while. Wait for things ta- …Aww God, I _can’t_. I can see his eyes already. Myers is a big boy and I’ve GOT to let him handle this, but if he doesn’t sort 'em out soon…

* * *

Myers:

I go through my e-mail and delete them, one by one. They’re like the usual joke chain-letters that circulate unchecked in ANY government organization, except that each one has an image pulled from the security camera in Hellboy’s room. They’re mostly of us. Me and him. It’s like a comic strip without words, or it was until somebody started adding captions last Wednesday.

If I wasn’t this angry, I might be really embarrassed.

* * *

Hellboy:

“What happened to the TV in the corner?” I ask, pointing.

Myers instantly gets that cat-got-canary look.

“Oh- -it just wasn’t working properly.”

In other words, that’s where the latest spy camera was hidden. …Those damn things are like crabgrass.

“Does this have anything to do with the picture of Thompson eating milk bones that got taped to every doorway in the-”

“Yeah, it might.” -There’s some steel in Myers’s voice.

“Huh.” I reach over and ruffle his hair with my fingers. “-Nice work, partner.”

“Abe helped,” Myers admits, smiling shyly.

* * *

Hellboy:

It’s over.

I look up at the blue sky through a ragged hole in the slate-shingled roof above me, and immediately start hacking and coughing from the settling stone dust.

“Blue, you okay?” I gasp.

“I appear none the worse for wear,” Abe says, stepping out of an alcove and lowering his crossbow.

“Myers?”

He raises a hand and nods, but doesn’t answer. He’s still got the wind knocked out of him from being thrown against the alter at the back of the church. I was aiming for the DOOR, but I had four-faced leather winged guy on my hands at the time. Yeesh. Talk about bats in the belfry…

* * *

Myers:

“We have GOT to get you a weapon,” Hellboy says, peeling off what’s left of his latest coat. It’s stained with some kind of black, sticky fluid, though whether from an attack or the monster’s blood I can’t tell.

“I’ve got a weapon,” I point out, holding up my gun.

“No, I mean a real weapon. Like silver-plated shirukens, or a bullwhip like Indiana Jones…”

“You want me to carry a bullwhip?” I echo.

Red looks me over for a moment.

“…Maybe not such a hot idea,” he admits. “-You’ve got one scar on your chin already,” he adds, grinning.

My hand goes automatically to my chin, and I feel kind of stupid.

“Maybe body armor would be more to the point,” I grumble.

“DAMN!”

“-What?”

“…I’ve never thought about that. Why DON’T you guys wear vests?”

“I- I don’t know.”

“We’re getting you one,” Red decides.

“What about the other agents?” I point out.

“Oh yeah, them too,” Red agrees.

“Good luck getting it past Manning.”

“That’s what I’ve got you for,” Red jokes, patting my shoulder.

“You sir, are doing your own paperwork on the bat guy.”

“…Deal.”

* * *

Myers:

I wake up with a crushing pain around my arm.

It’s quiet except for Red’s uneven breathing, and for a moment I panic, wondering where his dreams have taken him, and if Red’s going to break my arm before I can get him awake.

“MEOW!” I yell at him.

Hellboy’s startled yellow eyes snap open in the dim, silent flicker of the black-and white TV that’s still on, and he lets go of my arm carefully. I let out a breath, wincing.

“A- -are you okay?” he whispers.

“Yeah, I think so,” I nod, rubbing my arm.

“I am so sorry.”

Very softly, Red begins stroking my hair with his stone hand. He’s right handed, and despite what it looks like, I think he has better control with that one.

“Red-?”

“Hmm?”

“What were you dreaming about?”

Hellboy’s silent for a long moment.

“Oh, the usual. Just four men going out for a ride…” he sighs.

-In other words, he dreamed of the apocalypse. Again.

It’s irreverent as all hell, but a song comes into my mind, and I start humming the score under my breath. Red knows it. As quietly as someone with a voice as deep as his can, he begins to sing the words.

“An old cowpoke went ridin’ out one dark and windy day- -upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way- -when all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw- -a plowin’ through the ragged sky an’ up the cloudy draw…”

I join in, and we sing it through.

“…G'night, John,” Red murmurs into my hair.

“Good night, pardner,” I reply.

This time, neither one of us dreams.

-


	4. Save Our Souls

-

_The many men, so beautiful!_

_And they all dead did lie:_

_And a thousand slimy things_

_Lived on; and so did I._

       -From  _‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’_  (1834)

* * *

Hellboy:

The locker room’s quiet. Abe comes in from the shower looking pleased with himself, open gills shiny and wet.

“Laugh it up, bait breath,” I grumble, but I can’t keep a straight face.

Abe inclines his head, and if his face could bend that way, I know he’d be smiling.

I tug a black t-shirt down over my head. Myers should be getting out of that national security briefing soon, an’ after dinner-

“Red, can you think about that later?” Abe breaks in on me.

“Huh? …HEY! Stay outta my mind!”

“I would if you’d stop leaving the door open,” Abe bitches, “-really, it’s like an open elevator shaft- -anyone could fall in.”

“…What’s eating you?” I ask, tying my hair back.

“I was going to Scotland tomorrow,” Abe admits, sitting down on the bench beside me.

“And?”

“My… …talents were needed elsewhere.”

“Ah-huh,” I nod. I’ve had leave cancelled too, when things got hairy. “-Where?”

“The caves of Elephanta, Calcutta.”

“Want any help?”

“You and Myers will be off the coast of Labrador by then.”

“Thinks who?” I bristle.

Abe doesn’t answer.

* * *

Myers:

Hellboy’s pissed.

I don’t know who he’s pissed with, but he’s sitting up near the bow of the coast guard cutter, glaring out over the streaming wet sea. From time to time the rain threatens to drown his cigar, and he shields it with his left hand, puffing until the orange glow regains it’s hold on the end.

Then I hear it. Faint over the roar of the wind and the waves, the sound of a bell.

Red hears it too, and he stands up, listening.

All at once the clouds overhead turn to fog, and roll down like the smoke from dry ice, flattening the sea to a dead calm. The wind dies.

Ellis and MacIlroy come out of the wheelhouse, guns drawn.

The captain stays right where he is behind the glass, one reassuring hand on the helmsman’s shoulder.

“Where is it?” Ellis hisses.

“We don’t know yet. Put those away.”

Uneasily, the two agents holster their guns.

Off in the fog to the left, there’s a flicker of yellow-green light. It goes out, then it’s back, brighter. The beam moves across the sea’s surface, sweeping like a search-light.

It’s two beams, very close together, perhaps forty feet above the water.

I feel like they’re part of something much bigger, but I can’t see what until I glance down at the surface. Reflected there in the glassy mirror of the sea is a dark ship with a high iron smoke-stack, and what looks like a gun pointing down at us from the bow. More lights scattered along the ship’s side that seem to be coming from under the water rather than above it, and something- -the silhouette of a man in the crows nest, looking first at us, then beyond us. The search-light beams are coming straight out of his eyes.

The lookout.

The other lights are eyes too, I realize.

Looking up, all I can see is a long rip in the fog ahead of us, drifting steadily nearer and topped by the shifting, sickly-yellow beams of the lookout’s eyes.

* * *

Hellboy:

Hel-lo. That’s something you don’t see every day.

“Hey you!” I yell at the ship, “-you caught anything?”

There’s no reply, but the dimmer pairs of lights along the railing go dark, one at a time.

Across the water, I can hear the lap of the water around a hull that just ain’t there.

“Ahoy there! Whaddya want?” I call over again.

There’s a clanking sound, like a heavy chain being dragged across a metal plate.

In the reflection, I can see that the harpoon gun has a chain attached, and they’re cranking it back.

“Aww, nuts…”

I spit out the end of my cigar and dive over the side, straight into the reflection. When I come up there’s a ninteenth-century whaling ship in front of me.

It fires a harpoon into the sea ten yards away, and begins to haul it back empty: a miss.

I strike out for the ship and climb up the side. It looks like they’re going to fire again, so I grab a big metal locker and chuck it at the harpoon crew. It rips the launcher clean out of the deck, and sends it through the bow railing. There’s no sign of the crew, except for a severed arm still gripping the handle of the winch.

Suddenly the ship is silent. No more footsteps below, no more half-heard whispers. Even the funny glowing light overhead goes out.

* * *

Myers:

We haul the body out of the water, and Ellis goes white as a sheet. I follow his gaze, and shoot the thick gray eel that’s slithering out of a hole in the dead man’s throat. It drops into the corpse’s lap, and twitches a few times.

* * *

Hellboy:

THAT was a gunshot.

Can’t do anything about it now.

I read the name of the ship off a life-preserver- -the 'Norman Greene’. Nobody’s outside, so I climb the ladder and go in.

“Hello?”

The sound falls dead, not even raising an echo. I can’t see a damn thing in here.

Four inches from my face, a pair of brightly glowing eyes open and stare into mine.

I’m falling.

* * *

Myers:

It’s been too long, he should have been back by now. The lights on the water went out, then nothing. The corpse by the railing isn’t smelling any better.

I step into the lighted wheelhouse, and one of the coast guard guys offers me a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” I say, taking it. It’s too hot, so I add milk. The radio operator checks in with our shore unit again. It’s all quiet here, but something is -wrong-…

“Do you have a flare gun I could use?” I ask the skipper.

* * *

Hellboy:

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a sparkler. We had fireworks on the fourth of July when I was a kid in New Mexico. The base commander would say a few words, and they’d fire off bright streaks of light into the sky, even left-over munitions if they had any. Pop always said-

Waitaminute.

That’s not a sparkler, it’s a flare. Who would-

I blink, and I’m back in the present.

The flare disappears into the night sky straight upwards, and all around me in the dark, I can see the forms of maybe twenty dead sailors.

I try to break the heavy, old-fashioned handcuffs that they’ve used to shackle me to a chair, but it’s no go. I can’t move anything below my neck.

“What do you boys want?” I ask.

One by one, the whites of their eyes begin to shine out like the narrow yellow beams of sodium lamps. I can barely see any of their bodies anymore, just myself and a scarred metal table in the center of the room. It’s got bench seats on either side of it, partly occupied by shadows.

“Come on, lantern-heads. This ain’t funny…”

There’s a scattered hissing sound like they all started sucking their teeth at once, and the crowd edges in closer.

One of the ghosts is close enough that I can read the nametag on his uniform shirt.

“Mitchell? Can you tell me what’s going on here?”

Mitch blinks. He heard me, but he doesn’t answer. The ghost looks away uneasily.

They can _hear_ me.

I think about where we are, and who they were. And I start with the only words I can remember.

“What shall we do with a drunken sailor, What shall we do with a drunken sailor, What shall we do with a drunken sailor, ear-ly in the mornin’-” I move my fingers for a second, but- “-Put 'im in the long boat 'till he’s sober… um…”

Crap.

“Is that all ye know?” one of the ghosts asks.

“Yeah. …Sorry.”

The ghosts look at each other, and as the beams of their eyes pass through their friends’ shadowy forms they all look like black Swiss cheese.

“I know a song-” one of the younger-looking ghosts pipes up.

“Shut your yap, ya damn fool,” one of the others snaps.

The darkness outside seems to be getting thicker.

I start humming the tune of 'what shall we do with a drunken sailor’, and hoping real hard.

The young ghost, bless him, starts humming along with me.

“I SAID CUT IT OUT!” yells one of the other ghosts, but it’s too late: Two more voices from somewhere in the crowd have joined us, and they’re singing the words.

“Way, hey, and up she rises, Way, hey, and up she rises, Way, hey, and up she rises, ear-ly in the mornin’- -What shall we do with a drunken sailor-!”

SWEET. I’ve got the use of my hands. I hum along with the music and sing out loud and clear when I remember the words, and soon enough of them are singing and distracted that I’ve got my arms and legs back too.

“-Put him in the bilge and make him drink it, Put him in the bilge an-!”

!CRACK!

The ghosts all stop dead, staring at the busted chains dangling from the cuffs on my wrists. Then, just before the first one looks up into my eyes, I shut 'em.

Darkness. Darkness and the freezing breath of angry ghosts all around me as I fight my way out of the haunted dining cabin.

“I’m going to sink you,” I promise the clammy hands attached to the edges of my coat.

I can’t see where I’m going so I just GO, punching through bulkhead after bulkhead until my fist strikes open water and the pressure blows me back into the hull. I crawl sideways along a tier of bolted-down bunk beds, pushing against that terrible current for all I’m worth, crawling out until at last I’m clinging by my stone hand to the rough outer hull, crumpled steel and crushed barnacles between my fingers.

How I wish I was in White Sands now…

I rip as hard as I can at the sheet of steel in my hand, and kick myself out and away from the sinking whaler. A current takes me, and I go down, down.

* * *

Myers:

A red hand reaches up out of the water next to our big, six-sided lifeboat, and I grab it.

“RED! You okay?”

Hellboy clambers aboard, together with a least two bathtubs’ worth of the North Atlantic ocean.

“I’ll be a'right…” he says unsteadily, then throws up a lot of water over the side.

MacIlroy plucks a slimy, disembodied hand off the back of Red’s coat. It grabs for Mac’s thumb, and he flips it into the sea with a surprised yelp.

Ellis shoots the hand twice before it sinks.

-


	5. Believe

-

Hellboy:

Myers comes into the BPRD chapel through the back, and sits in the pew beside me.

“Hi,” he says, hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“Hi yerself,” I smile, dropping an arm around his shoulders, “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. You?”

“Dodging Manning. Besides, I figured I’d put in a good word for a sailor I knew…”

“They tried to kill you, didn’t they?”

“-Not the one that started singin’ with me, I don’t think.”

Myers lapses into silence, head back against my arm. His hair’s soft, and it tickles the inside of my elbow. I look up at the crucifix on the far wall, and I think of my father.

He liked Myers too.

I don’t know what he’d think about Myers sleeping over as often as he does, but I don’t think pops would be TOO bent out of shape about it. Surprised, maybe…

“Red?”

“Hm?”

“Are you really Catholic?”

“More or less, yeah.”

Myers looks up at me.

“I’m not sure what to believe. I mean… I’m supposed to be Episcopalian, but some of the things we’ve fought, things I’ve SEEN… How can I ‘have faith’ in stuff I actually KNOW is true?”

“That’s a chicken and egg thing,” I reply with a shrug, “-basically you’ve just gotta have faith that the good guys eventually win.”

Myers thinks about it, then nods slowly.

“I can do that.”

* * *

Myers:

His tail’s doing it again.

That slow, measured, tap… tap… tap… thing that reminds me of fingers drumming on a tabletop. I move to sit on the edge of the bed, watching. Red eyes me over the top of his book, hiding a smile.

I reach out, and close my hand over his tail, stilling it. Red lowers the book, staring.

I swallow a sudden rush of fear, and move closer. …I have Hellboy’s full attention now.

He’s breathing short, and a little shallow. I’m fresh out of courage, and I just sort of look at him, not quite a foot away.

Red closes the distance, cups the back of my head in his left hand, fingers sinking into my hair. He takes a breath, and kisses me.

I’m in Red’s lap now, and I have no idea how I got here. He’s wrapped around me, his arms, his tail… like I’m something too valuable to let go.

That’s how I wake up, anyway.

I take a moment to sort out what happened, and since we both were fully clothed a minute ago, it’s a good bet the kissing part was a dream. On the other hand, waking up on top of Red isn’t bad. He’s holding me snugly against his chest, just like in my dream.

When Red wakes up, this could be awkward. Or not. He does seem to like me, and to wake up like this…

Then again, I think with a tightening feeling in my chest, what if he’s dreaming about someone else?

I must have moved, because Hellboy turns his head, takes a deeper breath.

“Oh. Heh heh… hi there.” he hugs me, then loosens his hold but keeps one warm hand on the middle of my back. -So he LIKES me here, but that doesn’t necessarily answer my question. I sit up in the dark, hands flat on Red’s solid chest. I can feel his inquisitive yellow eyes, but I don’t look up right away.

“Red?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like me?” I ask. -He doesn’t mistake my meaning.

“…It’s that obvious?”

I nod.

“Good,” he says, with a hint of a smile.

* * *

Hellboy:

Just like that, Myers is kissing me. No warning, right on the lips.

Sweet, and thorough, and I… …really can’t think right now.

* * *

Hellboy:

?#&!!

I stare at the bloody hole in my leg, then at the Samaritan’s smoking holster, and I just KNOW this mission isn’t getting any better.

A crackling sound from front and center reminds me that it ain’t OVER either…

Sparking and snapping with energy, a thing like a black tumbleweed jitters just above the pavement of the deserted intersection. Fast eddies and dust-devils surround us in a cloud of road grit and bits of incinerated newspaper. For blocks around the lights are out, and it’s just as well. Electricity and this monster seem to be a bad combination.

So’s lightning and un-fired bullets. Ow.

What do I have ta do, GROUND this thing? …Or would it just go into the city’s power grid if I did? Nah. It had to touch the grid to short it out in the first place. It likes the overhead trolley cables though, like a ping pong ball on steroids.

Amazingly, my radio still works.

“Red, something’s got to be holding that thing together,” Myers says in my earpiece. I can tell he wants to ask if I’m okay, but he doesn’t. Good man.

“Yeah, try about ten thousand volts,” I say, dodging as the thing blasts past me.

“How is it maintaining enough static to HOLD that?” Myers asks.

Friction.

“I need a diversion!” I yell back.

Myers rolls down the driver’s side window of the truck, leans out, and chucks something clear. It skitters past the ball of hot lightning, and explodes. The tumbleweed bursts outwards in a fountain of light, partly dripping to the ground like liquid fire. I hold up the medallion from my belt pouch, and start speaking.

* * *

Myers:

It’s over, and for blocks around it’s perfectly dark. I grab for the door handle, and run out. Sitting on the ground in the darkness ahead of me, Red strikes a match.

The last of the spots clear from my vision as I’m walking towards him, and I can see a few blue-white stars overhead past the urban bleed. You can never see stars in the city…

“Nice work,” I say.

“Ahh…” Hellboy shrugs, fumbling with his cigar. There’s something wrong with his voice. He’s hurt bad.

“Where?” I demand.

Red pulls his coat back from a big, nasty gunshot wound just above his left knee, on the inside. The Samaritan’s holster is charred and it looks like all four rounds went off at once, including the one in the chamber. There’s no exit wound. Red has a damn big bullet, some fragments of broken glass, and a lot of stuff designed to kill monsters still in his leg, probably pasted across the top of his kneecap.

Getting all that fixed will _definitely_ mean knocking him out.

I give a low whistle, and start patching up Red’s leg for the ride home.

He gives me a tight-lipped smile.

The agents who were securing the area start to come in, and vehicle headlights crisscross around us. Abe looks down at the smoldering gray pile nearby, head on one side, and scoops some up in a clear vial, studying it.

“Metallic filings,” Abe decides, “-magnetic material found along the side of every road in the country.”

“Poltergeist,” Red explains. “It got cute with the filings, and used the friction to build up a charge.”

…Sometimes I forget how smart Red is. He hides it well.

“A fireman,” Abe adds, sensitive webbed hand held over the pile.

“A _fireman_?” Red echoes.

“Yes. From Queens.”

All that electricity, all those blown transformers, and yet somehow the only fire in sight is on the end of Hellboy’s cigar.

“Huh,” Red looks around, and exhales smoke. “…Whaddya know.”

I secure the end of the bandage, and Red can’t keep from wincing.

“Come on,” I say softly, “-let’s get you home.”

“Hey- what was that thing you threw?” Red asks, hand on my arm.

“Just a plastic water bottle,” I reply.

“I _love_ you.”

I don’t think Red meant it that way, but Abe makes an amused clicking noise in the back of his throat, and pointedly ignores us.

* * *

Hellboy:

“Anung un Rama…” the gray stone mask whispers without moving. It’s a smooth-featured woman with closed, slanted eyes and a partially open mouth. There’s nothing but blackness inside it.

It’s carved into a wall, not really a mask in the mardi-gras sense at all, and a tendril of lime-green jungle vine has crept down the stone over the years to frame one side of her face. A long orange snake with eyes like wet black beads slithers out of the carving’s mouth, and hangs down from her ear in a horseshoe shape, watching me.

“Anung un Rama…” the snake and the stone woman repeat, together. Her lips moved a little that time, with a sound like when I move my hand. The snake’s tongue is flat and un-forked, like a frog’s.

“Go ta hell, you two,” I warn them.

The snake turns from me, and whistles a few bars of a tune I don’t know.

“She is waiting,” a grasshopper perched on the vine comments.

“She will come,” the stone carving whispers.

“You will bring her through…” the snake accuses, happily.

“SCREW YOU ALL!!” I yell, and smash the carving with my fist.

I wake up in a twisted mess of bed sheets, and I’m glad Myers didn’t sleep over last night.

“Christ…” I mutter to the darkness, rubbing my face with my hand.

Right on cue, the alarm goes off.

* * *

Myers:

“Hey Red, wait up!”

He turns on me, the tattered left side of his coat fluttering.

“WHAT?” Hellboy demands.

“Um… never mind,” I decide, taking in the dangerous look in his eyes, “-I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he bites off, “-right.”

“What the heck did I do?” I demand, abandoning subtlety.

“Never mind,” he copies me, hands on hips, “-I’ll see ya next mission.”

Then I do something really stupid. I take Red by the shoulders, and push him up against the wall of the corridor. I’m not a small guy, and while I may look that way standing next to Red, it’s only a matter of degree. Still…

Hellboy stares at me with a hunted look, and waits to see if I’ll flinch. I don’t.

Abruptly, Red grabs the back of my head and kisses me firmly.  
I can feel the relief flowing out of him like cool, clear water, and the hand at the back of my neck becomes less iron taught. He wasn’t angry, he just thought I was looking for an excuse to leave. I can relate to that logic only too well.

We draw back with a soft 'pop’, both breathing unevenly. I lean in, and brush the side of Red’s heavy jaw with my five o'clock shadow.

“-Myers-…” he breathes.

“Your place?” I suggest.

“There’s a door behind me,” Red points out.

…The conference room?

“That’ll work,” I nod.

* * *

Hellboy:

I reach back and fumble the door open one-handed, accidentally bending the handle out a few degrees, and feel along the inside wall for the light switch.

Then I realize the lights are already on, think fast, and turn 'em off. All he, they, WHOEVER was in that room has seen so far is my left arm. I shut the door quickly.

Myers looks up at me questioningly.

“HELLBOY!” Manning roars from the other side of the door.

Myers winces, and covers his silent grin with one hand.

“What?” I ask, poking my head in around the door and looking at the darkened faces of Tom Manning and- -oh, crud- -the WHOLE special weapons team…

Manning’s face alone is lit up by the unholy blue and white glow from the overhead projector. For a moment, he looks like that emperor guy from 'Star Wars’.

“Would you mind turning that back on?” Manning asks, his voice dripping with ice.

“Sure,” I shrug, and flip the switch. I don’t wait for a reaction, but duck out quick, and close the door.

Me an’ Myers exchange one glance, and we both start running.

Back in Myers’s quarters he throws the lock, and we catch our breath, laughing. Myers takes off his sweater. I ditch my half-shredded coat, and go raid the fridge. For some reason there’s fourteen cartons of orange juice on the top shelf, and I smile. I drink a few, and come back with two glasses.

“Well, nobody’s called me yet…” Myers says, accepting one and drinking.

“I keep their expectations low,” I shrug, taking a seat on the couch beside him.

“Still, that was _close_ …”

“No SHIT.”

“Would it bother you, you know, if…” Myers licks his lips, unsure of how to proceed.

“It would make you different,” I explain, carefully.

“The other agents _already_ think I’m different-” Myers snorts.

“-No,” I interrupt him, “I mean it would… It’s a LINE, you know? You cross that, you become like me. Like Abe. Like Liz…”

“…You think you’re the only reason that- -that I wouldn’t be like everybody else?” Myers asks quietly, and I know I’ve just screwed up BAD.

“Myers, I don’t know any different if you don’t tell me.”

“This is in my file, Red.”

&#! I _knew_ I shoulda read that…

“I wanna hear it from you,” I say, skirting disaster close enough ta hear the rocks rattle over the edge. Maybe he buys it, an’ maybe he can just tell I’m serious.

“You know I grew up with my uncle, right?”

“'Course,” I nod.

“He took me in because my folks disappeared when I was six.”

“Disappeared?” I echo, “ya mean like-”

“-Yeah. They just- -went out for a drive, and never, ever came back. The police thought it was maybe a car-jacking gone bad, but I didn’t buy that even _then_ ,” Myers explains, “…I always had this feeling that they were still out there somewhere… people don’t usually disappear into thin air, you know?”

“Not completely,” I agree, trying hard not to think of what’s usually left.

“This sounds stupid, I- -I know that,” Myers says, speaking faster, “-but once I knew that people could just _vanish_ , the world looked different. How do you talk to people that are worried about- -about baseball and politics when YOU know that people can randomly DISAPPEAR?”

He’s right. It DOES sound stupid, and my first thought is to tactfully ask whether his parents could have left ON PURPOSE, but I don’t do it. This _could_ have been a case the BPRD should have handled, and either way, it’s a spook file to him.

I understand my father’s choice just a little bit better.

* * *

Myers:

I wait for Hellboy to say something, my heart in my mouth.

He’s giving this a lot of thought, and meanwhile he finishes his juice without seeming to notice.

“So what you’re sayin’ is, despite the way you look, you’ve ALWAYS felt like somebody who would fit in better down here?” Red says, at last.

“Um, basically… yes,” I swallow.

“…What other surprises you got for me?”

“That’s all for right now,” I shrug.

Silence.

I stare at Red sideways. He glances at me fondly, and folds his hands behind his head on the back of the couch.

“So, do you still want to- uh-” Red begins, and stops.

“Fool around?” I suggest.

“Yeah, that,” Red says, and I _swear_ he’s blushing.

“…Do you know how?” I ask.

“I’ve …seen things,” Red replies, carefully, “-I’m not sure I’d wanna DO most of 'em… What about you?”

“Well… I’ve read a lot.”

“I trust that more than I’d trust a cabby’s driver’s license,” Red grins.

“-Abe tells me I’m pure of heart,” I add, somehow managing the line with a straight face.

“Yeah, that’s what he said about ME!” Hellboy laughs, and takes my hand.

-

[End]


End file.
